Hi all,
I'm in a crossroad at the moment. I have to make a descision which manufacturer should i pick. I have made a study for each technology. I'd like to hear a word from you people that used some of this equipment. Multiviewers: Miranda (Kaleido X16), Harris (Predator II-GX), Evertz (VIP Series). Routers: Evertz (Xenon), Harris (Platinum MX), Utah (400SD). Any known pros and/or cons? Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

From what I've heard from everyone who owns any of these multiviewers, they're all capable and they all show scaling artifacts* on high frequency video (hey, it's a fact of scaling). Miranda has an interesting new multiviewer-on-a-card that I might select for some of our operations if I were replacing the existing multiviewers we have.

*assuming you're scaling down a bunch of HDs to fit on an HD display, if you're just moving SDs around an HD display at their original res, you shouldn't see this on any of these products.

As for routers, we have an older nVision. Miranda bought nVision and is releasing a new system that looks interesting. I wouldn't buy a new router system that will not do up/down/cross internally and does not do embed/disembed internally.

On a multiviewer, one thing to check is how well it interfaces with your production switcher. Ross Vision switchers, for example, can talk directly with a number of multiviewers.

We have an Evertz Xenon HD-SDI router here in Syracuse; it works well enough, but was not easy to configure. I wrote the software that controls it, and the serial protocol is straightforward. Although theoretically the router can be configured through a network connection, this was problematic... and I wound up using the RS232 port instead. Setting up the LCD-button control panels was a real head-scratcher, possibly because the panel we ordered was newer than the documentation.

On the other hand, I have deployed a number of Leitch routers over the years, and they are generally quite easy to set up. Some of our more recent Panaceas have been somewhat quirky with the clean/quiet switching... no particular pattern to it, and it happens infrequently enough to make troubleshooting a pain. Harris doesn't seem to have deviated from Leitch's design philosophy.

I suppose I would opt for difficult configuration if that's what it takes to get a stable routing platform...

Since this thread got spam-bumped, guess I'll add an on-topic note. We installed a Ross Ultrix router about six months ago, fitted out as 72x72 SDI, to be the core of our automation rebuild. The thing is only 2RU high (not including the 1RU power supply), and includes clean/quiet switching that can be selectively enabled for every output. It can do audio breakaway -- something we haven't had since analog days -- and ours is licensed to generate four separate multiviewer outputs. For a given multiviewer window, you can either hard-select source assignments or control them with a router panel (as if they were a virtual output)... you can also assign them to follow whatever is being switched to a particular physical output. So in our case, we can assign a mirror of each of our twelve station's switched program outputs to a multiviewer spot... and the legend automatically changes to show what source happens to be feeding the output. It's an absolutely amazing piece of gear, and they are just rolling out a larger frame size that can give you up to 144x144.

The Ultrix makes me feel old just to think about it: it's more powerful in 2RU than our 1984-vintage Utah AVS-1 was -- and that filled two racks!